Nazi, angsty mum strikes again.

You know, with all the talk about how fast kids learn to read, write and spell, more so with the use of flashcards, why on earth would a childcare centre name themselves “My First Skool”?

I’m sure there’s a good reason and most adults would smile at the kiddish spelling of school, but really. Seeing “Skool” spelt as such, everyday is not going to help the kid.

No?

Ok, random rant over and out. That aside, they just opened a branch within walking distance. Everything is NEW and utterly appealing. Plus, the student-teacher ratio is great as erhmm, no students yet. But it does seem depressing for the kids. They look so lonely in there.

Updates have been very random and very late. So much so that sometimes I don’t quite feel like blogging anymore. It is quite a ‘chore‘ to blog when the event is long over. I find myself rambling on (ok, I do that a lot, no matter how ‘fresh’ the event is).

These days, there really isn’t much time to blog. BabyK sleeps really late. Following in the footsteps of her brother. More accurately, she is spoiled rotten and needs to be carried to sleep. She usually knocks off around 12plus (11 if we are lucky) and then wakes to nurse around 3plus or 6 (again if we are really lucky).

She then sleeps through till 9ish, 10. Sounds good, but then there is older brother J to think about. He wakes around the same time and the day begins with a struggle to get him ready for school with teeth brushed, breakfast in tummy and all changed (hopefully with a bath) and out the door. Usually babyK is fed her solid brekkie, ie, non-breastmilk food at the same time.

Then J’s off to school at 10plus and hopefully, babyK’s down for her nap. If she does her *ahem* business early, she gets an early bath. Otherwise, we’d play by ear. Then it is a constant sleep-wake-play cycle for her. Most of the time with her attempting to stick herself to me.

3 hours FLY by and I’m off to pick Jayden up from school. If the weather’s fine, we are all happy. If it is hot or rainy, I question whether it is a boon or bane to be staying so near. Although I have not tried, I’m positive  no taxi in their right mind would take us.

Back home again with the boy and we spend the afternoon cajoling him to have his food. We have activity time throughout. And the activity of the day depends on our mood. His as well as mine. Sometimes it is the tv as the babysitter to the rescue with Hi5 (current favourite) as he is somewhat obsessed with song and dance right now. Music he calls it. But any non-parent would be faster to call it noise.

By the time 6pm rolls around, we start him on his dinner and try to wind down his activities and pack him off to bed by 8. He gets some reading done (C.A.T cat!) and when he finally nods off, I get some peace. That is, if babyK allows.

Inbetween, I try and create new items, pack orders, list new items and blog. I wonder why I don’t get more done. Hmm.

And all this is only possible because my mum’s around to help (thank you mummy!).

Self explanatory really. We didn’t disappear into some blackhole or other but really, were trying to survive the twosome. Jayden is 4 months shy of turning 3 but we don’t see the end of the ‘terrible twos’ stage. Nowhere in sight. Nope. In fact, it feels like it is getting worse.

He is testing boundaries, pushing limits and has spent an insane amount of time getting to know Mister Cane. A part of us suspect that he might be ADHD but there’s no way to actually test it out until he turns 3. And even so, will take a while before a proper conclusion can be reached. He has turned the home topsy turvy and been chalking up a whole list of ‘naughty’ deeds. Like spoiling a perfectly new-old TV that we had just brought home yesterday. And refusing his medicine. And not eating. Flipping tables in acts of defiance and turning around to hit whoever is disciplining him.

No fun I say.

Behavioural issues aside, we did a whole host of other things over the last week. Like visit Changi Airport to watch the aeroplanes take off (and a couple taking ROM shots), stare at fountains and rub out etched carvings of ‘iconic’ Singapore. (Terrorise the foodcourt is not the main point but they did just that. Jayden did. Kathlene just slept through most of the meals).

Baptise Baby K 2 Saturdays ago. Monkey around with the gramps. Life does go on. Just that we need a whole lot more comfort food. And canes. And more raised voices.

As for Baby K, well, she is a screamer. And a spoilt brat (quote unquote my mum). She is quite the koala, nevermind who is carrying her. Just so long as she is being carried. Sometimes she takes it up a notch higher by disallowing said person to sit. Time consuming. And also, since she’s on a developmental streak, she has learnt how to flip perfectly and is constantly ’showing off’.

I had quite forgotten how difficult it is to change the diapers of babies who love to flip. And am not enjoying the reminder.

Oh. I forgot. She’s quite the tv addict too.

Enough photos for today. Till the next round… Hopefully sooner than later!

One of the longest in Jayden’s history. And not because his lil sister was born but because he was up to SO.MUCH.MISCHIEF. Goodness. Let’s just say we are thankful to see the weekend come and the end of July.

Hopefully August brings better days.

Sometime during the course of the week Jayden managed to lock himself out of his room. This led to a mad search for the keys before we decided to just change the locks. The boy has reached a height where he is able to open and close doors with relative ease and just started, on a whim, to play with them locks too. If he had locked himself in, he would have been able to get out without a problem. But as chance would have it, it was the other way round.

So we got new locks on all the doors… and round knobs which, heh, happen to be harder for small hands to grip. He is one clever one though. We told him that we needed money to change the locks. We brought out his piggy bank and he rushed for grandpa’s pockets… in search of much needed moolah. Haha. Sneaky one this fella.

… and never see the floor so dirty!

We took the plunge and went cold turkey with Jayden this past week. He’s been using the bottle for the longest time even though he can drink from a cup relatively well. He however, as with everything else he does, segments milk bottle for erhmm, milk and the cup for plain water. So he kicked up a fuss when the cup was introduced for everything fluids.

He went on a mini-milk strike for the first day or two but we notice his food intake is finally climbing! He is down from his usual milk guzzling aka drink-parents-out-of-house-and-home state of 4-6 feeds a day to 2-3, and chugging noodles, cornflakes, raisins, eggs and pizza! Gee… maybe we should have gone cold turkey sooner.

And oddly enough, this helps us set a routine with him. After his last cuppa for the day, he actually requests to brush his teeth and change up for the night. He then troops in his room, bolsters in hand and switches on the aircon. He climbs up the bed and asks for songs and tapping till he is out for the night.

Funny kiddo I have here. He sets his own routine. Many eons ago we did that, established a good routine and he went to slosh it out. But now he’s back. Crossing fingers that the appetite will continue to be good though!

While I am glad Jayden knows his numbers, he loves to ‘count’ his own way. He actually knows how to count from 1 to 10 perfectly well (by that I mean in proper sequence) but being the cheeky little monster that he is, he loves to count ‘Jayden style’ ie, jumping over numbers.

He’d start off fine … 1, 2, 3 … then jumps straight through to 8, 9, 10 and back again to run through the missing digits.

Entertaining once or twice, irritating when done too often with the cheeky grin and downright frustrating when you are trying to count level scoops of milk powder.

He has a habit of perching himself at the safety gate (barricading the kitchen from the living room) and he’d shout out the numbers as I empty the scoops into the milk containers. It almost drives me insane as I try to correct him and keep track of what count I was at. BAH humbug. He better learn to scoop his own milk powder if he keeps this up. I’m resigning from that position.

Kitchen MoguMogu
14 Scotts Road, #01-07,
Singapore 228213

There are very few things that get my goat that badly that I have to blog about it, write in to them and / or the press. I’ve already sent an email to this eatery in question and still feel that I need to blog it out. If you have been following the blog, I seldom do ‘bad’ reviews of anything but this really took the cake.

First up, I am more the sort who eats to live. If it is ‘edible’, I’d usually just survive with it. But yesterday’s experience at Kitchen Mogu Mogu was so bad, it is impossible to keep quiet. We should have taken the visual cue of the near empty eatery (what at FEP during lunch hour crowd?!) to have taken our business elsewhere.

We ordered two meals, and ‘upsized’ one of them. When it came… the disaster started.

1. the iced green tea is completely tasteless. It is quite simply, coloured green water. That is cold.
2. the vegetables on our set was ‘leftover’ from the day before. The carrots and corn left a foul sour aftertaste and the cauliflower that was served in a big clump, was undercooked. Tasting very raw.
3. the miso soup was overtly salty, more so than even Yoshinoya.
4. the chawanmushi was laced with so much pepper you could not taste the egg at all.

And this consisted at least half the meal. Spoilt the appetite and the portions were quite pathetic. Until and unless they buck up, please take your business elsewhere.

SERIOUS. The concept of Japanese fast food is good. But not with the standard they offer. In these times of recession, money can be MUCH better spent elsewhere.

Arms crossed, it almost looks as if he is in a stand off … waiting to see who caves in first.

He asked for eggs. When they came, he ate some of it and then decided enough was enough. And then tried to get out of eating the rest of it.

Frankly speaking, this isn’t too bad by his standards. BUT we are thinking that some peer pressure will go a long way in getting him eggexcited in his food. All of it. Maybe day care is a good thing after all.

(Yes, we are exploring Kindi / Daycare options for him. I’m totally confused by all the different terms the different centres use. Why can’t they say it like it is?!)

… I think that Jayden runs on solar energy. Today is one of those days.

Try as we might to get him to turn in early last night, he refused. He finally zonked out at 2am after exhausting his bag of tricks (needing to go ‘potty’, wanting milk, wanting a diaper change, some moisturiser cream, saying ‘nite nite’ and hugging us all, having his bolsters around…) and woke just now at 7plus asking to go for a walk.

Gah. Which toddler survives on milk and 5 hours bedtime nap? Now pardon us if we don’t make coherent sense for the rest of the day.

Reason #3238676 you want your kid to not be so mobile.

We headed off to the bank yesterday and stupidly thought not to bring a stroller. ‘We’d be driving! How difficult can he be in that short period at the bank?’ I thought. Big blunder.

5 minutes into the outing and he was wrecking havoc. He went to play with the dustbin lids, the drink dispenser, the security door pin numberpad and then took to lying on the floor creating snow dustangels right beside the queue.

I was just waiting to collect passbooks and free gifts and to scramble out the door into oblivion.